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Uganda to host inaugural CECAFA Women Championship

Xinhua, September 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

Uganda is set to host the inaugural Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA) Women Championship later this week.

Nicholas Musonye, the secretary general of CECAFA, told a media briefing in Nairobi that the tournament scheduled between Sept. 11 and 20 in the town of Jinja has attracted seven teams from the region.

"It is all systems go except for the small issue of the prize structure to be awarded to the winners, and which will be in place before the tournament ends after we finalize with our sponsors," Musonye said.

The competition will feature teams from Uganda, Kenya, Burundi and Zanzibar who are all drawn in Group A, and Ethiopia, Tanzania and Rwanda who will battle it out in Group B.

"The women have in the past challenged us to give them a platform to compete since women's football has taken root in the region and we have thrown the challenge back to them and expect a good competition from them in return," Musonye said.

The CECAFA region has 12 member nations, but women's football is developed in only seven nations, with South Sudan, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea all struggling to put women's football in place.

Uganda made history by becoming the only country on the entire African continent with a national women's league.

Unfortunately, because of its inactivity on the international arena for over 17 months, Uganda remains among the 40 countries not ranked by FIFA as per the latest women's rankings released in December 2015.

On the CECAFA front, only Kenya and Tanzania have a FIFA ranking. Endit